Google Enhances AdWords Features for Digital Marketers

The new features, which include easier customer conversion measurements, improved re-engagement paths to increase sales, and enterprise-class workflow, reporting and optimization tools, were unveiled by Jerry Dischler, vice president of product management for AdWords, in an April 22 post on the Google AdWords Blog. The new features, which will roll out over the next several months, were announced by Dischler at an AdWords Performance Forum.

The improved re-engagement features are aimed at helping digital marketers keep their customers involved with using an app even after they download and install it on their mobile devices, wrote Dischler. "Over 80 percent of downloaded apps are used only once and then deleted," Dischler said, referring to a 2013 study by Digital Trends. "Lots of businesses are able to get their apps onto a device, but might never see their customer again. Today we announced a new app re-engagement campaign type in AdWords for both search and display so that consumers can be taken directly into already-installed apps. For example, if someone has the HotelTonight app installed on their phone and searches for 'hotels in San Francisco' on Google.com, they can go directly to the specific page in HotelTonight about SF hotels, instead of being taken to the app's main landing page."

The enhanced measurement tools will now allow digital marketers to measure conversions across the entire lifecycle of the app, from installation by the consumer to re-engagement when they use it again and for measuring their in-app purchases, he wrote.

Also coming are improved tools for businesses that want to promote app installs by consumers using the AdMob network, wrote Dischler. The enhancements will "enable you to reach people who are your most likely customers, based on the apps they use, the frequency of use and the types of in-app purchases they make. For example, if you exercise regularly and use an app to measure how far you run, you might see an ad for an app that helps you measure the foods you eat and calories consumed. On YouTube, we're enabling app installs as an enhancement to the current TrueView offering."

The new enterprise-class workflow, reporting and optimization tools were the result of requests by users, wrote Dischler. "For businesses looking for new customers, the increase in constant connectivity means that the scale of your campaigns is growing, and you've told us you want help to manage your campaigns more effectively."

The tools allow new bulk capabilities for extensions and settings so that users can easily set up campaign settings like location targeting and ad rotation across all their ad campaigns (even if you have thousands of them!)," he wrote. "This should be particularly useful for big seasonal promotions, when you might want to update all of your campaigns at once."

The existing AdWords automated bidding features are getting enhancements, such as the ability for users to maximize the number of conversions or the total value of conversions they target, according to Dischler. "For example, if you're a carmaker, you'll be able to set up your campaign to allocate your budget in a way that maximizes the number of people who visit your site to design a custom vehicle."

The advanced reporting tools aim to help users better analyze their data, without having to repeatedly download and reformat the data, he wrote. That's being done with new multi-dimensional data analysis and visualization tools that users can use to perform most, if not all of their data analysis within the AdWords platform. "We're also making it easy for you to turn your data into tables, graphs and charts so that you can download them and share with your teams."

Google Enhances AdWords Features for Digital Marketing

Also being added is an internal "lab" that will allow users to perform even more testing and tweaking for their live campaigns before releasing them, he wrote. "You can experiment with almost anything in your campaign, including bid changes, new keywords, different campaign settings, special bids for times and locations, different kinds of ad formats, and more."

Google regularly offers special events and training sessions for digital marketers as part of its ongoing services to its clients.

In March 2014, Google announced a series of online webinars to teach new skills to digital marketers who use Google's DoubleClick ad platform. The webinars, which are being offered through June, aim to help teach digital marketers how to use DoubleClick more effectively to enable their businesses to generate more clicks and more revenue. The webinars range from the fundamentals of DoubleClick Campaign Manager (DCM) for rookies to presentations on platform changes from previous versions and advanced sessions on reporting, using in-stream video and more, according to an eWEEK report.

The first part of the improvements was the replacement of the former DoubleClick for Advertisers interface with a new DoubleClick Campaign Manager, which Google called the biggest upgrade to the platform's core ad server in the 15 years since it was begun. The new social media features have been added to the DoubleClick platform through integration that's being built using Wildfire's social media platform, which Google acquired in 2012.

In September 2013, Google launched a new DoubleClick for Advertisers (DFA) Academy to provide more advice and self-paced training for its DoubleClick advertising service customers to reap even better results from their online ads in Google Search and elsewhere. The online academy provides help for general questions as well as more detailed, specific inquiries. The online DFA Academy is a self-paced learning path designed to guide users through core help articles and online training courses. It is designed around "checklists" that participants can use to mark their progress and new competencies before moving on to the next lessons and skills.